Sound design and original composition

Take the Wind

July 2014

Radio/Commercial

I can see the line in front of me and, suddenly, that familiar sensation is reinstated in my heart. I want to win. I have to win.

Behind the cyclist that holds the trophy are other cyclists – other professionals – other men who also began as boys with dreams of glory. But at some point in their professional career, they made choices – of necessity or by chance – which meant that they would never be winners. They are the domestiques – the men who ride in the wind for their winner, saving him up to 40% of his energy across a race like the Tour de France.

Take the Wind positions the listener in the hearts and minds of these men in the last few kilometres of a stage of the Tour. The composition features recordings made all around Yorkshire, alongside a palette of abstract sounds produced by recording, striking and bowing parts of a bicycle. Moving and speaking in strategic manoeuvres, and ﬂying by the Yorkshire scenery, the domestiques ﬁnd the space to tell their stories in the heat of the race: buzzing thoughts beside aching muscles, with barely half a pedal revolution in between.

This piece was commissioned as part of the Cycle of Sound community radio sound-art project linked to the Tour de France's Grand Départ in Yorkshire. Text by Charley Miles, sound design by Karen Lauke.